England and Portugal win on record night for Kane and Ronaldo | OneFootball

There were eight 2024 European Championship qualifiers on Thursday as the first round of fixtures got underway and this is what went down.

Kane makes history in win over Italy

Scorers: Retegui 56′; Rice 13′, Kane (PEN) 44′

Harry Kane’s record-breaking goal for England fired them to victory over Italy in their opening game of European Championship qualifying.

England started stronger and after Bukayo Saka and Jude Bellingham went close, got the opener after 13 minutes when Declan Rice pounced on a loose ball in the box after Italy failed to deal with a corner from the right.

They deservedly doubled their lead moments before half-time when they were awarded a rather dubious penalty for a handball in the area from Giovanni Di Lorenzo and after a lengthy VAR check, the spot-kick was awarded.

Kane stepped up to exorcise his penalty demons from the World Cup by sending Gianluigi Donnarumma the wrong way but more importantly made history by becoming England’s all-time top scorer, overtaking Wayne Rooney to move out alone with 54 for his country.

They should have had a third in injury-time but Jack Grealish will need to take some shooting tips from his captain after he skewed off target with an open goal in front of him from eight yards out.

He was made to pay for that when Italy, who were much improved after the break, pulled one back on 56 minutes as debutant Mateo Retegui grabbed his first goal with a calm finish to become the first player ever to score for the Azzurri while plying his trade outside of Europe.

The 23-year-old plays for Tigre in Argentina, the country of his birth and qualifies for Italy through the grandparents rule and he and his team-mates were offered further encouragement in the closing stages when Luke Shaw picked up two yellow cards in quick succession.

However, the hosts failed to make the numerical advantage count in the limited time remaining as Gareth Southgate’s side gained a small measure of revenge for the Euro 2020 final.

Record-setting Ronaldo shines for Portugal

Scorers: Cancelo 8′, Silva 47′, Ronaldo (PEN) 51′, 63′

Portugal thrashed Liechtenstein with ease in a game that will be remembered for Cristiano Ronaldo making another prestigious piece of footballing history.

The outing saw him pick up his 197th cap for his country, moving him ahead of Bader Al-Mutawa of Kuwait for the most ever for in men’s football and within eight minutes he and his team-mates were celebrating.

A corner was punched to the edge of the area where João Cancelo was lurking and his snap volley squirmed past the goalkeeper with the aid of a huge deflection.

Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes both missed big openings to add to that advantage before Bernardo Silva did double their lead within moments of the restart for the second half.

On his record night, Ronaldo then got a goal to go with it, also netting from the penalty spot like Kane had for England.

He went one better shortly afterwards by blasting a free-kick in from the edge of the box for his second in as many games to wrap things up in style.

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